


this is just to say

by mousecookie



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: (no really), Angst, Cisco's A+ Self Confidence, Fluff, M/M, Pining, and farmers' markets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:34:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24548455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousecookie/pseuds/mousecookie
Summary: The full headline was, "HARRISON WELLS Dating Meta Menace? Tech Mogul Spotted Getting Cuddly With Villain REVERB, Back From The Dead?!"  The picture was a blurry shot of Harry at the farmer’s market, leaning down to whisper in the ear of… Cisco himself.  He remembered that day.  It had been in autumn, cool enough to wear a leather jacket, but sunny enough that he’d worn sunglasses too.  Even considering the jacket and glasses, and the fact that Reverb’s face was literally the same face as his own, the photo didn’t look much like Reverb.  Typical tabloid.Cisco stared at the word ‘dating’ in the headline.  And then ‘getting cuddly’.  Ridiculous.  Only in Cisco’s dreams.   He chewed his thumbnail, searching his memory.  What had Harry been whispering to him?  He struggled to remember.  Maybe something about Earth-1, or metas.  They always tried to keep Flash business on the down low.“Just ignore it,” Harry said from right next to him.Cisco jumped guiltily.  He’d looked too long and been caught.  “Sure,” he said.
Relationships: Cisco Ramon/Earth-2 Harrison "Harry" Wells
Comments: 29
Kudos: 115





	this is just to say

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic as an indulgent escape. While it’s ambiguously set in post-S4 canon (pre-Crisis), you won’t find villains or meta fights here. This is a story about the spaces in between.
> 
> The title is taken from the poem of the same name by William Carlos Williams, which also inspired the premise, because unapologetic snack theft seemed like a very on-brand Harrisco thing to do. The text of the poem is in the end notes.

It all started with what Cisco had begun to call _Operation Fruit Ninja_. 

Harry had an irritating habit of commenting that things on Earth-2 were, on the whole, better than their counterparts on Earth-1. Cars, roads, the status of global warming, the internet, cash (“Why is it rectangular? It makes no sense, Ramon”), phones, TV shows, candy, the list went on. Cisco was pretty sure that half of it was just to needle him and start arguments, which Harry clearly enjoyed.

But in Cisco’s humble opinion, the most irritating part about it? Sometimes, Harry was right.

After tasting grocery store produce from Earth-1, Harry had made a face and started bringing his own supply of fruit from Earth-2: berries, cherries, plums, apricots, and peaches. Cisco immediately understood why when one afternoon, he stole a peach, and the first bite flooded his mouth with golden sunshine nectar. It was indecently good. Sustainable, organic agriculture was clearly one area where Earth-2 had an advantage - not that Cisco would ever admit it. Harry was insufferable enough as it was. Instead, he simply proceeded to help himself from Harry’s stash whenever the urge took him. Harry didn’t seem to notice; if anything, he just started bringing more of everything. Perks of being a rich tech mogul on his earth, Cisco supposed. Unlimited fruit. 

Today, the space in the workshop mini-fridge not already occupied by microbrew ales was crammed with blueberries. They were already washed - Harry was meticulous about that - and looked like piles of dusky blue gems. Cisco grinned and took a half-pint carton. Then he tapped his chin, thinking, then wrote _‘Sorry not sorry!’_ on a post-it note and put it in the empty space where the carton had been. 

He’d been stealthy so far in his execution of Operation Fruit Ninja. Or at least, he hadn’t ever taken something while Harry was watching, or said anything about it. He’d decided, however, that he was missing out on opportunities for prime Harry-taunting. He could see it now: Harry bending to open the fridge, his long angular lines folding as he peered inside, and the way he’d glare over his shoulder when he saw the note. It was gonna be great.

Content with his cheeky post-it, he ate the blueberries one at a time while he sketched designs for his latest project. Each chilled berry broke open between his teeth, spilling cool sweetness over his tongue, succulent and perfect. There was not even a hint of the acrid sourness characteristic of out-of-season imported berries from the grocery store near his apartment. 

His graph paper acquired a collection of tiny violet smudges. His focus narrowed in on his work, obscuring his awareness of his surroundings. 

“I see you got into the stash,” Harry’s voice said out of nowhere.

Cisco startled so badly that the blueberry he’d been about to eat missed his mouth. He lunged to catch it before it could hit the floor. As he straightened up, he suppressed the ridiculous urge to hide it. He was supposed to be teasing Harry about this! Where was his bravado? 

“Uhh-” he said, grinning, stuck halfway between guilty and shameless. “Maybe.”

It was a weak retort, and Harry’s sharp blue eyes held no irritation. Cisco’s stomach flipped a little at the way they fixed intently on him. It was really inconvenient - he’d been nursing this stupid crush for months now, and there was no end in sight. How pathetic was it that one _look_ could make his insides quiver? It was just Harry. Snarky, tall, brilliant Harry. Who was his friend. _Just_ his friend.

Harry sat on the edge of Cisco’s desk and stole one of the blueberries for himself. Well, ‘stole’ was perhaps not the right word, considering. 

He bent to look at the drawings. “This is an upgraded pulse rifle.”

Somehow, that statement made Cisco more self-conscious than being caught in the middle of Operation Fruit Ninja. He’d noticed Harry complaining about his old pulse rifle jamming sometimes, so he’d decided to make the redesign as a gift (and maybe a sort-of apology for skimming off the mini-fridge snacks. Curse his guilty conscience).

“Yeah,” Cisco replied. He put down his rescued blueberry and poked it to roll slowly across the corner of the paper, avoiding looking at Harry. “You’re a buzzkill when your weapons are on the fritz. So.”

Harry absent-mindedly picked up the berry and ate it, ignoring Cisco’s jab. His focus was still trained on the schematics. “I like it,” he said after a few moments. “You’ve added a pulse modulator.”

Cisco compulsively tucked his hair behind his ears. (It was already behind his ears, dammit). “Yeah. You know, so you can _set phasers to stun_. Pew-pew.” He mimed finger-guns.

Harry ate a few more berries, and snagged a pencil to make some light notes on the drawings. Cisco took this as a cue that he could keep eating, too.

The schematics acquired more purple smudges.

“Wanna see where all this comes from?” Harry was still looking at the paper, but his pencil momentarily jabbed towards the berry box.

“What?” Cisco asked, bemused.

“There’s a farmers’ market in my Central City,” Harry explained. “Well, there are a lot of them. But there’s a big one I like in particular. It’s where I get everything I bring here.”

To Cisco’s wishful mind, going to a farmer’s market together sounded… a lot like a date. Well, or it _would_ , if he didn’t know Harry well enough to know that was an absurd idea. Harry hadn’t shown romantic interest in anyone the entire time Cisco had known him. No dates, no flings, no girlfriends or boyfriends. Just the beloved memory of his late wife. Cisco felt privileged to have heard Harry mention her once or twice.

And anyway, even if Harry was hot to trot for a date, it was unlikely he’d go for Cisco. Cisco himself was… well, he knew he had friends who valued him and loved him. But relationships were a different story. Lisa Snart had only wanted to manipulate him. Cynthia had only been looking for something sporadic and casual. Kamilla had been sweet, but the stresses of being a superhero’s girlfriend had built up until she couldn’t take it anymore. 

Cisco was beginning to think he just wasn’t relationship material.

So yeah, there was no way Harry was puttin’ on the moves here. It was far more likely that this whole thing was going to be about how Earth-2 was better than Earth-1. Taking Cisco to a _superior_ Earth-2 farmer’s market would just be another way of showing off. Yeah, that was it. Definitely.

Besides, it was just a stupid crush - the kind that arrived like a nice summer breeze, were fun to indulge for a bit, then faded away. He’d be over this fixation soon. He had to be. 

“Sure, I'll come along,” Cisco said, staring hard at one of the labels he’d drawn on the schematics. “It’s a... deal.” Not a date.

They planned the excursion for the following week. 

Cisco found himself fussing at his appearance in the mirror that morning, then shook his head and told himself he was being ridiculous. He shouldn’t dress up for this. Harry would probably notice the extra effort, and be weirded out by it. 

This wasn’t a date.

This was just good friends hanging out. And Cisco was happy with that. It was enough. And if Cisco continued to tell himself that, maybe he could quash the small, inconvenient part of himself that wanted _more_. More of Harry’s fond smiles. More hugs - not just at hellos and goodbyes, but anytime the urge struck (which was often). More of Harry’s trademark snark, more of that laser-sharp attention, more touch and intensity and vulnerability and _knowing_ \-- 

But no. It was a stupid, silly crush. And ‘good friends’ was enough.

He sighed, shoved his pile of indecisive clothing options aside, and chose a nerdy tee and skinny jeans at random.

The middle of summer in Central City on Earth-2 was sunny and tolerably hot, rather than scorching like on Earth-1. Cisco didn’t comment on the temperature difference. He knew it would only result in a monologue from Harry about how the Earth-1 industrial-capitalist complex had badly damaged the planet’s ecosystems, and if only they’d been responsible like _Earth-2,_ the Earth-1 climate wouldn’t be doing its best impression of a planet-sized toaster oven. (And yeah, Cisco couldn’t refute that. But he didn’t need the lecture every time, okay?)

“This way,” Harry said, leading the way out of Earth-2 STAR Labs and across the parking lot towards an adjacent street. “We’re taking the monorail.”

“You, taking public transportation?” Cisco scoffed. “Don’t you have like, a limo on call?”

“Sure,” Harry replied easily. “Or you could breach us closer. But this will be more fun. You haven’t been on our trains before - you’ll like it.”

That sounded sort of romantic, but-- _not a date,_ Cisco reminded himself.

“More fun! Sounds good,” he agreed aloud.

“After all, they’re better than Earth-1 trains,” Harry added, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Cisco pulled a face. “How did I know you were going to say that?”

The sleek bronze monorail _was_ fun. It was clean and shiny and it moved as smooth as a marble on a track through the city, gradually rising up and over some of the major traffic centers. It was like ascending into the clouds. Cisco had to resist the urge to press his face against the glass of the window like a child to see it better. 

The train gave a minor jolt as they began to brake for their next stop, and Cisco stumbled against Harry. Harry caught him easily, holding him tight in a one-armed hug while he seized the overhead rail with his other hand.

_“Sorry about that,”_ the conductor’s embarrassed voice sounded over the intercom. _“Smooth sailing from here.”_

Cisco, his face hot as an Earth-1 summer, delicately and reluctantly began to extricate himself from Harry’s secure hug.

“Thanks for the save,” he said, clearing his throat and _not_ thinking about how Harry was apparently all muscle, because pressed up against Cisco he’d felt very… firm. So many abs. And then the pecs he’d had his face squished up against - those had been very solid too. And the arm that had been clamped around him? Basically iron.

_Not a date._

“Even superheroes need saving, now and again,” Harry said dryly, letting Cisco go. He briefly held Cisco’s elbow to make sure he was steady on his feet. 

The monorail began to descend, and Harry pointed out a gap between the buildings where the structures beyond were much lower and interspersed with trees. A wide, even road from outside the city meandered into it. 

“A lot of agricultural land is out in that direction,” Harry said. “The city council made it easy for farmers to come in and sell directly to the public - built the road, designated a special market quarter, gave it all kinds of ordinances so no one can steamroll it and put a parking lot there. It’s a protected space. Jewel of the city.”

Cisco watched emerald trees begin to appear through the train windows as they zipped through and down. It was like sinking into the ocean, if the ocean was leafy foliage. 

The train pulled to a stop in the middle of the woods. "Market Street Station!" announced the conductor. The doors opened with a pneumatic hiss, and they disembarked. After the chilly air-conditioned train, the summer heat pressed against Cisco’s skin like an old friend. He inhaled deeply. The air was thick with green scents of plants and sun-warmed dirt and sweet hay. If not for the tips of skyscrapers visible over the treeline, he wouldn’t have guessed they were in Central City at all. 

“Quite the change, isn’t it,” Harry said from close at Cisco’s side. There was a wide, paved path leading from the train station into the woods, visible for about fifty yards before it turned and was lost from sight. The canopies of the tall trees arched over the path like a cathedral ceiling. 

“Yeah,” Cisco replied. His stomach grumbled audibly, and he eyed the path. “Please tell me we don’t have to trek for miles to get to the part where the food is.”

“Not too many,” Harry answered seriously. “The terrain is a little rough, but I think we should make it before sundown if we don't take breaks.” When he saw Cisco’s dismayed pout, his expression broke into a grin. “It’s just around that bend.” 

“Rude,” Cisco proclaimed, and led the way down the path.

Harry followed, unrepentant.

The Central City Farmers’ Market was enormous. Part of it was set up under a permanent awning structure, like a giant open-sided barn, but the rest spilled out on all sides in lazy looping paths. There were tables and barrels and buckets and bushels of colorful _everything_. The purveyors and the crowd of customers were just as varied and bright in their summer clothes, and happy chatter made for an ever-present buzz in the background. Sweet and savory smells drifted on a slight breeze, making a tantalizing advertisement for heaps of fragrant peaches and stacks of freshly-made Afgan bolani with dipping sauces.

At their first stop, they tasted samples of sliced apricots so delicious that Cisco was immediately patting his pocket for his wallet. As he did so, he remembered that his rectangular Earth-1 cash would have no value here. His shoulders slumped. How stupid to forget such a basic detail!

Harry touched his shoulder and passed over a shiny bronze token about the size of a credit card. Except square, of course, because this was Earth-2, the land of square currency and vertical video. 

“Cash square,” Harry explained. “I loaded one up for you. You pay for everything on your...” he eyed the crowd close around them, “...turf, so I figured fair is fair when you’re on mine.”

Cisco accepted the token, touched by Harry’s planning. “Thanks.” 

He observed other patrons hovering their cash squares over a little box on each table, which generated a small holo projection of the cost of each purchase. He mimicked their actions to buy his own handful of apricots. 

He ate one right out of the bag as they walked to the next booth, sweet summer dripping down his chin. His eyes fluttered shut.

When he opened them and wiped his mouth, he caught Harry glancing away.

“Are you getting sunburned already?” he asked, eyeing Harry’s slightly pink cheeks.

“No, it’s just warm,” Harry replied. He rubbed the back of his neck.

“Hold on,” Cisco said, wiping the back of his mouth and rummaging in his backpack with sticky fingers. He produced a little bottle of SPF 70+ water-resistant sunscreen, and held it out. “Here you go. Pasty people sunscreen.”

Harry accepted the bottle with an odd look on his face. “You packed this for me.”

“Well, I have SPF 30 in my moisturizer, you know - like a sane person," Cisco shrugged, feeling a little caught out. "But I figured you’d be no fun if you turned into a boiled lobster. It was in my backpack from the last time we did something outside.”

Harry considered the bottle, lips quirking, then offered it back. “Thanks, but it’s less necessary on this earth. We haven’t damaged our ozone layer quite as badly as yours.”

Cisco rolled his eyes heavily. “Oh, _here_ we go.” He snatched the sunscreen back.

Harry broke into a grin. “Can't argue with facts, Ramon. Come on - the line for the bolani stand just got shorter.”

They devoured fresh hot bolani: flaky flatbread stuffed with pumpkin and lentils and potato, dipped in different sauces made of sweet jalapeno, yogurt, and cilantro. As they cleaned oil from their fingers with tiny paper napkins, Cisco soaked in the feeling of the happy crowd around them.

“This is pretty dope,” he told Harry, glancing up at him.

“I know,” Harry replied. His smile was soft as he surveyed the scene.

Cisco’s heart thumped a little harder. He quickly looked past Harry’s shoulder to distract himself, and saw something that made him frown. 

“Why is there a sign shaped like a bee over there? Please tell me they don’t have beehives.” He edged back a step, like bees were going to come swarming over now that he’d noticed they might be there.

Harry snorted. “No beehives. Just a beekeeper's stall with honey and things you can make with beeswax. You like sweets, Ramon - come on.” He nudged Cisco towards the sign.

Cisco reluctantly let himself be nudged. On the way there, his focus drifted away from potential bee encounters, as Harry was being very… hands-on about maneuvering them through the packed crowd. Not in an overwhelming way, but he kept touching Cisco’s arm or shoulder when it wasn’t strictly necessary. Once, his hand pressed briefly to the small of Cisco’s back, ostensibly to steer him around a woman carrying an enormous bouquet of flowers. It made Cisco’s stomach swoop, and he looked up at Harry with traitorous hope in his throat - but Harry wasn’t looking at him. The flowers passed. Harry dropped his hand. But even after the touch was gone, Cisco could still feel the weight of it, like a memory of Harry’s attention that soaked through his shirt and into his skin.

_Not a date,_ Cisco reminded himself, even as he loved every moment. Harry was just a tactile guy. He doled out hugs to the whole team whenever he had to leave for a while. His hand had always seemed to have a magnetic pull towards Cisco’s shoulder, even in the early days. This was really nothing new. Nothing different. _Nothing to read into here, folks._ It was Cisco himself who’d changed, with his stupid crush.

The beekeeper’s stall was stacked high with jars upon jars of honey in all different shades of amber, from pale chamomile to bold sunshine to dark molasses. There were rows of beeswax candles, too - pillars and votives and creative molds in the shape of flowers - nestled next to fresh chunks of honeycomb in hexagonal glass containers. To top it off, there was a platter of fresh baklava, each piece nestled in a crimped paper cup. A sweet aroma hovered over everything.

Cisco’s mouth watered.

“Dr. Wells! It’s good to see you again,” said the cheerful vendor, an older woman with grey-streaked hair. She pulled a dark jar of honey from the stock, clearly anticipating Harry’s order. Then she smiled at Cisco. “Can I get you samples of anything?”

“Yes, absolutely,” Cisco fixed her with his most charming grin. “Mm, maybe a little of that one, and that one,” he pointed to sample jars labeled _Local Wildflower_ and _Honeysuckle_. “And maybe some of that o--OH GOD.”

He yelped and stepped backward squarely into Harry’s chest with a _thump_. A bee was hovering over the baklava. A real, live bee.

“You said there wouldn’t be any bees!” Cisco hissed high-pitched at Harry, who hadn’t moved except to place a steadying hand on Cisco’s shoulder.

“I said there were no bee _hives_ ,” Harry clarified from right next to his ear. Cisco could hear the smile in his voice. The bastard. 

His chest was warm at Cisco’s back.

_Not a date._

“They’re harmless!” soothed the vendor, chuckling. “Sometimes passing bees are attracted by the honey smell. I suppose it’s confusing to them to find all their hard work put in places they don’t expect, like sweets for humans!” She gently shooed the bee away from the platter of baklava.

“Hmm,” Cisco said skeptically, posture stiff.

Harry squeezed his shoulder and stepped around him, pulling his cash square out of his pocket. “Two of the baklava. And the usual jar. And let’s do a full flight of samples. Ramon has never been here before.”

“Coming right up!” the vendor said. She rang up the pastries and the jar of dark honey, then moved to the sample jars and began dispensing a generous daub of honey onto two popsicle sticks. She spoke to Cisco, who was still keeping his distance. “Dr. Wells already knows this, but I find it’s best to start from the lighter flavors and move gradually to the bolder ones, so you can fully appreciate the flavor at each stage. This is an acacia honey. Very mild, very subtle.”

Harry took both of the samples, and offered one to Cisco with a grin. “You have to come over here if you want to try it.”

Cisco grumbled and crossed his arms, looking around for more bees. 

Harry wiggled the popsicle stick at him. “It’s going to drip and get wasted.”

Cisco sighed. “Fine.” He edged over and took it, eyes flitting around to keep watch for bees. Just as the vendor promised, it was a light, delicate flavor, coating his tongue with sweetness. “Mm,” he said appreciatively, licking his lips. “Okay, this is worth risking a bee for.”

The vendor offered them plain crackers as a palate cleanser, then proceeded to the next jar.

“This one is a local wildflower honey,” she said, smiling and handing over two more popsicle sticks. “Around here we get lots of blue star, golden coneflowers, asters, ox-eye sunflowers, and red columbine, and the bees go absolutely wild for them.”

The wildflower honey was delicious, and subtly different than the acacia honey - a little stronger, a little more floral, and syrupy smooth. Down the row of jars they went, trying each honey made from honeysuckle, alfalfa, sage, lavender, beechwood, and buckwheat. The tastes became progressively spicier, earthier, maltier, their flavors bold and distinctive instead of simply sweet.

The last jar in the row was a dark chestnut honey, the same kind the vendor had already packaged up for Harry.

“This one is very strong, not everyone likes it, especially straight from the jar,” the vendor warned as she daubed honey on two sample sticks. “Dr. Wells is an exception.”

The chestnut honey looked and smelled a bit like blackstrap molasses, with an undertone of something else he couldn’t place. Cisco turned to Harry. “You think _I’ll_ like it?”

Harry nodded. “Absolutely.”

Cisco shrugged and popped the dollop of honey into his mouth. Immediately his face puckered into a moue of distaste, and Harry broke out into laughter.

It was _bitter_. Bitter like burnt coffee, and it clung to the inside of his mouth. Cisco hastily ate several of the palate cleanser crackers. It only helped a little. 

“You dick!” he accused through a mouthful of cracker crumbs, petulantly giving Harry a push. 

Harry flexed his abs and barely moved, except to keep laughing. “Guess I’m still exceptional,” he drawled like the infuriating human annoyance he was.

The vendor smiled sympathetically, and offered Cisco a generous sample of the wildflower honey. “Here, cover it up with something you liked.”

Cisco gratefully took it, glaring at Harry all the while. “I trusted you,” he hissed.

Harry grinned, too full of schadenfreude to even fake at being sorry. “You should have seen your face.” He polished off his own sample of acrid chestnut honey with obvious enjoyment.

Cisco huffed. “I think I should be able to trust my--” he stopped awkwardly mid-sentence, suddenly stymied by what to call Harry. What was Harry to him? Close friend? Yes, of course. But maybe also best friend? Technically also crush? Holy hell, he couldn’t say the last one. “...friends,” he finished.

Harry gave him an odd look. “You always know you can trust me on the _important_ things, Ramon,” he said seriously, because apparently Harry was all about impromptu heart-to-hearts in public places.

“Yeah,” Cisco conceded. He elbowed Harry again. “You’re still a dick.” 

The grin returned. “I know.”

“The baklava is made with our wildflower honey,” the vendor said reassuringly, tactfully reminding them both of her presence, though the corners of her eyes were creased in amusement. “You definitely won’t have any issues with that.”

“Good!” Cisco swiped both pieces of baklava for himself. 

Harry rolled his eyes and began picking out another piece from the platter. 

“Ooh, add on a jar of the good stuff,” Cisco said, sliding a jar of wildflower honey over to the register. 

“Would you be interested in some of our beeswax skin care products?” the vendor asked as she rang up the jar. “We have some samples of those, too.”

Cisco’s face lit up. If he’d been looking at Harry instead of at the tins of hand salve, he’d have seen a fond smile pulling at Harry’s mouth, softening his expression. But he wasn’t looking. He didn’t see it.

All told, Cisco ended up with two jars of honey (wildflower and lavender), a tin of beeswax hand salve (“because my skin gets totally parched from the workshop”), honey-scented hand soap, and a chunk of fresh honeycomb. 

His bag began to weigh on his shoulder with all his purchases.

“We should pick up our fruit haul for the week before that bag splits open,” Harry said, plucking at the strap.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But if it does, it’s your fault! You encouraged this!” Cisco accused, though it carried no bite. 

This was the most fun he’d had in a while. Both he and Harry had been working overtime on Flash business, either on the meta crisis of the day or their ongoing projects. And sure, superheroing was its own kind of fun, but it wasn’t necessarily _relaxing_. This market, though? It was simple contentment, through and through.

They purchased a wealth of snacks for the next week - apricots, plums, peaches, cherries. More blueberries. Bolani and dipping sauces. On the way, they sampled rich Comté cheese sliced with tart Bramley apples, and sipped at fresh-pressed apple juice from paper cups. 

Cisco acquired a crown of multicolored sweetpea blossoms that he refused to take off, even after Harry teased him that it might attract bees.

It was around this time that a familiar voice cut through the chatter around them.

“Dad?” It was Jesse, smiling broadly as she edged through the crowd, craning her neck to see him. “Daddy!” She rushed to throw her arms around Harry’s neck for a hug.

“Quick!” Harry’s face crinkled into joy and he caught her warmly. “I wondered if we’d see you here.” He set her on her feet and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

“Yeah, I’m here with some friends. Wait - _we_?” Jesse asked, then caught sight of Cisco. “Oh hey! I didn’t recognize you with your flower crown!” She tweaked one of the blossoms, then hugged him too. When she stepped back, she looked him up and down, then shot a sidelong look at her dad. “I didn’t know you were bringing Cisco for a visit. You should have told me, I could have planned something fun for all of us.”

“I thought you might be busy with Quick business,” Harry said, rubbing the back of his neck. Was his sunburn getting worse?

“Uh-huh,” Jesse grinned at her father, a sharp edge to it that reminded Cisco very much of Harry. He wasn’t sure what it meant.

“How’s the suit treating you?” Cisco asked Jesse, putting aside the quandary.

“Oh it’s great,” Jesse told him effusively. “Really, so awesome. It’s so comfortable, and I haven’t caught on fire even _once_ since you upgraded the tri-polymer weave. Um... I am sometimes getting weird feedback on the biometric transceiver array, though. Do you think you could troubleshoot on your next visit? Or maybe just send over the schematics?”

“Just send you the schematics,” Cisco scoffed. “Girl, you know you got me on speed-dial. Text me and I’ll come by. Give the suit a full tune-up. _And_ leave you the schematics.”

“Oh that would be awesome, thank you!” Jesse gushed, and reeled him in for another hug. “I’m pretty sure I could figure it out, but this way, you have an excuse to come say hi.”

“Psh, of course you could figure it out,” Cisco said. “But I’m always game to come hang!” 

Harry squeezed his shoulder. “We appreciate it. Your work isn’t half-bad.”

“Half bad?” Cisco huffed indignantly. “Half- _bad?!_ Now you listen here, you--” he poked Harry in the chest, fiery words on his tongue, but he got distracted by how brightly Harry was grinning down at him. Big and smug, like he’d already won. It fried Cisco’s brain circuits. “You… you are wrong… about that…” he trailed off lamely, narrowing his eyes. “Super... wrong.”

“Yeah, Dad,” Jesse said, eyes dancing. “Don’t throw shade.”

“Hmm. You’re right,” Harry mused, eyes dancing as he held Cisco’s gaze. “He’s at least part way decent.”

“At least part way decent--?!” Cisco started, but broke off and put his hands on his hips. He glared up at Harry for all he was worth, tilting his chin up to compensate for the height difference. “See if I ever upgrade your pulse rifle again.”

Harry was still wearing that cat’s grin. “We’ll see.”

Jesse coughed. “Anyway. It’s great to see you guys. I should probably get back to my friends.” 

“You sure you don’t want to join us?” Cisco asked. “Your dad is being a pain in the ass and I could use an upgrade in company.”

“No, I think I’m good,” Jesse replied, amused. “I’ll text you about the suit. You two have fun.”

She waved and disappeared back into the crowd.

“That girl,” Cisco shook his head fondly. “It’s hard to believe someone so nice came from someone who’s such a _jackass._ ” He shot eye-daggers at Harry again.

“She takes after her mother’s good nature,” Harry said, unbothered. “When she’s mean, she takes after me.” Then he met Cisco’s eye squarely, and the teasing tone was replaced by sincerity. “Thank you for keeping her safe. Your workmanship is unparalleled.”

Cisco found himself wrong-footed by the directness of the compliment. He always floundered when Harry said sincere nice things, and it was especially dangerous now that there were these pesky _feelings_ involved. It wouldn’t do for Cisco to read more into a comment than Harry intended. It wouldn’t do for him to get wishful. 

So he bailed. 

“You know it is! I’m so amazing. Haha. Yeah, no big deal. Gotcha covered,” he replied awkwardly, and to his horror, his hands decided now was a great time to employ his trusty _finger guns_. Oh god, he had to flee, flee from the awkward. His eyes seized upon a nearby sign. “But you’re buying crepes! Like right now.” 

He quickly strode off towards a market stall that was emanating a rich buttery smell. Mmm, crepes.

“I’m paying either way! Your cash square is my money too, Ramon,” Harry complained, but he followed behind.

They had full bellies and sore feet by the time they were ambling back towards Market Street Station. The short walk on the forest path was quiet and mostly vacant of other people, which was soothing after long hours in the bustling crowds. The warm summer air, tempered by the approach of evening, clung to the backs of their necks and pressed on their faces. 

“Not that I didn’t enjoy the train on the way here,” Cisco said as he shifted the strap of his heavy side bag, which was cutting uncomfortably into his shoulder, “But mind if we breach outta here? My feet are killing me.”

“Hm. Good call,” Harry said, and veered off the path into the tall bushes.

Cisco followed him, noting that a lone couple approaching from the other direction were giving them a side-eyed look.

“People probably think we’re sneaking out here to make out in the woods,” he snorted as he maneuvered past leafy branches.

“You wanna make out in the woods, Ramon?” Harry asked dryly, glancing over his shoulder.

Cisco’s face grew hot.

“No!” he squawked, called out by his own joke. “That’s not what I-- there was a couple walking up, and they saw us climb through the hedge, and they gave me a weird look. It’s probably what _they’d_ do.”

It was too late, though - the idea of settling into Harry’s arms, tired and pliable, and tilting his face up for soft kisses in the serenity of nature actually sounded like _exactly_ what Cisco would like right now. The more he thought about it, the more appealing it became.

_Not a date._

He was so distracted he almost missed Harry’s reply.

“--s should be far enough,” Harry was saying, casting around to examine the shield of bushes and tree trunks that now stood between them and the path. “No one should be able to see us.”

“See--?” he asked, his pulse a little faster than usual. The image of sitting in Harry’s lap and kissing him helpfully popped up in Cisco’s mind.

“The breach, Ramon,” Harry replied, giving him a look. His gaze raked over Cisco’s appearance, and he stepped close. Cisco held his breath without realizing it. Harry reached out and plucked something from Cisco’s shoulder: a stray sweetpea blossom that had escaped his crown. “We should go soon, too - you’re losing structural integrity.”

“Yeah, totally,” Cisco wrung the correct answer out of his frazzled thoughts. “Let’s go.”

He opened a breach, but didn’t move to walk through it. The woods around them, the light filtering through the leaves, the gentle breeze - it all felt like a liminal space outside reality. Something special for just him and Harry. Somewhere the rules didn’t apply.

_Don’t do something you’ll regret,_ he told himself desperately.

“This was really fun,” he said, wrestling down his impulses. “Thanks for bringing me here.”

Harry adjusted the strap of his satchel and shifted his weight. “Of course.”

There was a moment of silence as they stood close, eyes locked. Neither of them stepped towards the breach, or moved to widen the small distance between them.

Harry licked his lips and took a breath. “Cisco--”

Cisco suddenly couldn’t bear to hear whatever Harry was about to say.

“So yeah! We should go. Thanks again,” he blurted, interrupting.

Harry’s gaze shuttered and he opened and closed his mouth a few times. Finally, he replied, “Sure. You’re welcome. Ramon.”

Butterflies began to flutter and chase in his veins, and Cisco hurriedly turned away and strode through the breach before his mind could conjure any worrisome, forbidden thoughts.

It wasn’t a date, after all.

\---

After the not-a-date, things went mostly on as they had before. Harry continued to bring a weekly supply of fruit and snacks to the lab from Earth-2, and Cisco continued to help himself. 

Sometimes, Harry would ask if Cisco wanted to join for the trip, in that same offhanded way he’d asked the first time. Sometimes, Cisco said yes. Okay, okay-- he _always_ said yes. 

Soon they were going together every week. Cisco loved it.

The Earth-2 Central City Farmers’ Market was a bustling place of happy goodness, a perpetual haven from all things stressful on Earth-1. Cisco and Harry developed a routine: they took the monorail to get there. They visited stalls that were their mutual favorites. They split ways to acquire particular things they individually liked (Cisco shuddered each time Harry bought a jar of chestnut honey). They stuffed themselves with samples. They basked in the sun, or sat on hay bales in the shade. And then when they were tired, they’d walk into the woods, and Cisco would open a breach to take them home to Earth-1 STAR Labs.

They didn’t linger in the woods like they had the first time, however. Cisco was determined that he wouldn’t allow any awkward conversations that might ruin their new tradition, or their friendship. He still wasn’t sure if Harry had gotten wind of his unfortunate fixation, and he wanted to keep it that way. Cisco knew his chances - or lack thereof - and he didn’t want to provide any opportunities for Harry to deliver a gentle let-down. 

The scenario was easy to picture. Harry’s face, often so sharp, would take on a look of painstaking, awkward kindness. There would be no cruelty - Harry had grown far beyond that, at least in situations with people he cared for. Harry would touch his shoulder, regretful and earnest, and tell him - _Ramon… I can’t be that, for you_. Then he’d squeeze Cisco’s shoulder in apology, and he’d leave. 

Their easy rapport would be gone. 

And Cisco would have one more data point about how he wasn’t cut out for relationships.

He just wanted to enjoy his silly crush in peace. It was harmless, right? If Harry never knew, or never said anything, and Cisco could one day get over it, then there was no harm in Cisco letting his heart beat a little faster when Harry smiled.

...He procrastinated on the “getting over it” part, however. 

As summer stretched into autumn, and the market stalls were piled with heaps of melons, pumpkins, and apples, Cisco wasn’t taking a step back from his crush. In fact, he was finding excuses to stand closer to Harry than was really necessary. Because... like he'd told himself so many times before, where was the harm?

“It’s penguin protocol,” Cisco said, joking-but-serious as he squished against Harry’s side in the chilly afternoon. “In the tundra you have to stand close to conserve body heat, or you don’t survive.” 

“Ramon, there was barely any frost this morning,” Harry replied, rolling his eyes as he took a sip from his hot spiced cider.

He didn’t push Cisco away.

When the Autumn Corn Maze was opened at the edge of the market, they gleefully raced through it. Harry pulled ahead with his long strides, only to be cut off by dead ends and forced to backtrack. Cisco moved more slowly, but made better choices at each juncture (partly because Harry kept ruling out the bad ones). At the end of the maze race they were neck-and-neck. The exit was visible only yards away! Cisco shamelessly grabbed a handful of Harry’s jacket to keep him from passing by, but Harry promptly eeled out of it like he was in a quick-change magic act, leaving Cisco holding it as Harry raced across the threshold first. They were both red-cheeked and panting as they stumbled out into the open.

“I almost had you!” Cisco accused, laughing and gasping for breath.

Harry grinned back at him, wide and toothy, and Cisco’s brain stuttered with the intense desire to grab Harry’s big stupid face and kiss him. No. Bad Cisco. _Not a date._

“Yeah, almost,” Harry replied. He swiped his jacket back, and winked. “But ‘almost winning’ is still losing.”

Cisco gasped in affront, and made it his mission for the next few minutes to try to shove a handful of scratchy corn husks down the back of Harry’s shirt. He was unsuccessful, mostly because Harry was infuriatingly tall. When he threw the corn husks at Harry instead, a gust of wind blew them back into Cisco’s own face. Harry wheezed with laughter. The indignity was unbearable! Cisco crossed his arms to pout. Harry’s humor simmered down to a smug smile, and he deigned to stand close and carefully picked fragments of dried husk out of Cisco’s hair. That part was absolute perfection, actually; Cisco adored having his hair played with. His eyes slipped shut in contentment at the feeling of strands being teased here and there. 

When the touch stopped and Cisco opened his eyes, Harry was still _right_ there, his bright blue eyes sharp and overwhelmingly close. Cisco’s pulse jumped. Harry had this _look_ in his eyes, like he was going to say something. Oh no - Cisco had probably been too obvious, letting his guard down. His feelings written all over his face. 

It was the first day in the market woods all over. Harry was going to call him out.

Cisco had to stop it from happening.

“Race you back to the market!” Cisco said in a rush, and took off at a run.

He heard Harry’s footsteps behind him almost immediately, but strangely, Harry didn’t overtake him. When they reached the crowd and came to a stop, Harry didn't say anything. He just looked thoughtful. Maybe a little bemused. Cisco determinedly steered them to wait in line for a crowded snack booth, and by then, the odd mood seemed to have lessened.

Cisco breathed a little easier and called his diversion a success.

Eventually, the Earth-2 Central City Farmers' Market shut down for winter.

Cisco saw Harry just as much as he had before, since they shared their workshop just like usual. And that was nice. But he missed market days. He missed the food, and the happy crowds, and the fleeting, sort-of cuddling that happened whenever he and Harry got pressed together by the other market-goers, or when Cisco decided to stand close. There just weren’t as many chances for that in the lab without being horribly obvious about it. 

Cisco missed everything about market days, and found himself falling into a bit of a funk.

Harry noticed. 

“Missing the exceptional Earth-2 environment?” he asked wryly. “Me too.”

Cisco sighed and hunched further over the project he was tinkering with. “Whatever, the food is good.”

“It’s better,” Harry challenged.

“It’s _good_ , that’s all,” Cisco insisted, bending further over the project he was tinkering with. “Are you gonna work on that exponential power drive? Or do I have to listen to another round of _‘my earth is better’_ again?”

Harry’s mouth stayed fixed in an amused quirk. “Just stating facts.”

“Whatever.” Cisco jabbed at a delicate piece of machinery with a little less care than usual. “I don’t care.”

“It’s too bad you think that,” Harry said casually as he leaned back in his chair, hands laced comfortably behind his head. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Cisco could see the motion pull at the hem of Harry's shirt, which slid up to reveal a few inches of his very toned midriff. Which Cisco was absolutely not going to look at. Wasn’t going to- wasn’t going to-- damn. Okay, he was weak. He looked. But only for a second! Damn the man and his abs.

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?” Cisco fired back, irritated both at Harry and at himself.

“Because at this time in winter, they turn the marketplace into an ice-skating rink.”

Cisco’s expression automatically perked up, and Harry’s teeth flashed.

“I knew you’d see that I’m right.”

Cisco caught himself and soured again. “I never said--”

“Your face says it for you, Ramon.”

“We have ice skating rinks on this earth! And they’re great!”

“Sure.”

Cisco wasn’t sure how Harry could pack so much skepticism into one word. It was outrageous. They could easily just go to a rink around here on Earth-1! And the whole team might tag along, even.

...but then it wouldn’t be special. Something just for him and Harry. 

_Not a date._ The old reminder sprung up again, the phrase Cisco determinedly kept in his mind whenever he started feeling too wishful. Nothing he ever did with Harry was a date. It was frustrating that he was still having the same conversation with himself in his head, over and over, but never _getting_ over it. Cisco envisioned taking his unrequited romantic feelings and squishing them in a box. And then setting the box on fire. Yeah. That would do it.

“Fine,” he said aloud, exasperated. “But only because I want to see it and tell you that our ice rinks are just as cool.”

Harry looked smug again, and when he opened his mouth Cisco knew whatever he was about to say next would be supremely annoying - and he was right.

“Considering the freezing point of water is the same on both our earths,” Harry said, “I would expect that they would be exactly as ‘cool’ as each other.”

“Wow, you’re the actual worst,” Cisco griped, but against his will a fond smile was pushing its way onto his face.

“We’ll go, then,” Harry said, like Cisco had agreed. He unfolded from his stretch and returned to his project.

“Yeah. Fine,” Cisco said.

They went ice skating that very weekend.

It felt so good to be back in the market quarter of Earth-2 Central City. Even transformed into a winter palisade and covered with snow, the area held a bounty of beloved memories from the last months. There was the same bustling crowd, and the same positive energy radiating from people’s faces as they smiled and laughed.

Something unwound in Cisco that he hadn’t even realized had gotten twisted up.

Harry rented skates for both of them, and they sat on a wooden bench to lace them. As Cisco shoved his feet into the heavy shoes, a tabloid magazine left abandoned on the ground caught his eye. The name _Harrison Wells_ was prominent on the cover title, along with a blurry picture, one that looked sort of like--

“People should recycle these, even if they’re more aptly labeled _trash_ ,” Harry groused, snatching up the magazine from the damp ground before Cisco could fully see it. He walked stiff-legged in his skates to the recycling bin, and tossed it away. 

Cisco watched him. “I saw your name on that.”

“Of course you did, I get tabloid press. I’m Harrison Wells. But they’ll say anything, about anyone,” Harry shrugged. “I’ve learned to ignore it. Gossip rags aren’t worth the pulp they’re printed on.”

When they made their way to the rink, Cisco let Harry step ahead of him and peered inside the bin to catch a better glimpse of the magazine.

The full headline was, _HARRISON WELLS Dating Meta Menace? Tech Mogul Spotted Getting Cuddly With Villain REVERB, Back From The Dead?!_ The picture was a blurry shot of Harry at the farmer’s market, leaning down to whisper in the ear of… Cisco himself. He remembered that day. It had been in autumn, cool enough to wear a leather jacket, but sunny enough that he’d worn sunglasses too. Even considering the jacket and glasses, and the fact that Reverb’s face was literally the same face as his own, the photo didn’t look much like Reverb. Typical tabloid. 

Cisco stared at the word ‘ _dating’_ in the headline. And then _‘getting cuddly’_. Ridiculous. Only in Cisco’s dreams. He chewed his thumbnail, searching his memory. What had Harry been whispering to him? He struggled to remember. Maybe something about Earth-1, or metas. They always tried to keep Flash business on the down low.

“Just ignore it,” Harry said from right next to him. 

Cisco jumped guiltily. He’d looked too long and been caught. “Sure,” he said. 

Because of course the magazine should be ignored. In Harry’s words, an article suggesting they were dating was _‘trash’_. Because they weren’t dating. Not even a little. Cisco’s anger at himself resurged, and his sunny smile had faded. Why couldn’t he just get the message already? This was _not a date._ Harry wasn’t interested in Cisco that way. And why would he?

“They don’t allow paparazzi in the market quarter,” Harry added as they made their way onto the rink. “Like I’ve said before, it’s a protected space. That photo shouldn’t have been taken. I can file a report, and the tabloid will get a reprimand. It shouldn’t happen again.” 

“It’s fine,” Cisco replied, but the word _‘trash’_ was beginning to echo on a loop in his head.

“Alright, Ramon, let’s see what you got,” Harry challenged as he stepped confidently onto the ice. He seemed as comfortable skating as he did walking, running, or power-sliding. 

Cisco followed distractedly behind him, promptly slipped, and fell flat on his behind. “Fuck, ow.”

“Easy does it,” Harry chuckled, stepping close to help Cisco to his feet and squeeze his shoulder. “Take it slow. Remember: you’re Cisco Ramon! You can do anything.”

Cisco had grown to guiltily cherish these earnest compliments from Harry, but with a sore rump and low spirits, he struggled to regain his festive cheer. He’d been so excited to skate together, because he was still pretending it was special. Romantic. Harry’s reaction to the tabloid was a reminder of how mistaken that notion was. How obviously, this was _not a date,_ so much that Harry apparently thought the very idea was _trash, trash, trash-_ -

“Ramon?” Harry’s mouth was pursed in concern.

“I’m fine,” he said hurriedly, pasting his smile back on. Guilt swept over him. It wasn’t Harry’s fault Cisco couldn’t keep his feelings in his metaphorical pants. Harry was his friend, and Cisco cared for him as a friend first and foremost. He shouldn’t need more than that to feel happy. He shouldn’t _expect_ more from Harry, ever. What kind of terrible friend was he? 

He needed to be better. He’d lose Harry entirely if he wasn’t careful.

“Okay. Let’s do this!” Cisco said determinedly. He pulled free of Harry’s supporting hands and made a few passable strides in his skates. He wasn’t the best skater by any means, but he could manage the basics when he wasn’t lost in his own head. It was easy enough to follow the flow of other skaters in a straight line down the side of the rink.

After a moment, Harry glided effortlessly into view next to him. “Don’t run into the wall when we have to turn.”

Cisco laughed. “Fuck you.” 

Sometimes it was helpful that Harry was an asshole. It was a good reminder not to over-romanticize him. Or to romanticize him at all.

Except… Harry’s snark was one of the things Cisco liked about him. He liked their banter. He liked someone keeping him on his toes. Harry knew when to stop, too. Or at least he did these days, long after the transformation of the Thinking Cap and the subsequent full restoration of his intelligence. He knew how his words might affect others. Cisco might go so far as to call him ‘sensitive’, at least in comparison to how he’d been when they first met. Awkward sometimes, yes, but sensitive - at least towards people he really cared about.

...Cisco was romanticizing, wasn’t he. Holy goddamn Hannah--!

The curved wall at the end of the rink was approaching fast. Cisco leaned in to the turn like he knew to, determined to show Harry he was a competent skater. It was working well until a small child with a knit pom-pom hat skidded out of left field and square into his path. Adrenaline surged - _don’t run over the tiny human! Hurting children bad!_ \- but he wasn’t nimble enough to do more than fling himself off to the side.

His feet immediately tangled on themselves and toppled him over, bruising his hands and rapidly sliding headfirst towards the wall. He braced for hard impact, certain he was about to have a concussion, or worse - but it never came. There was a screech of blades on ice and something yanked him sideways at the last minute. He collided with a surface much softer than the wall.

It was Harry. Because of course it was.

“We need to work on your brakes,” Harry huffed. One of his iron-muscled arms held fast around Cisco's middle. 

“That child is a menace,” Cisco replied indignantly. “I was doing fine.”

Harry helped him up and brushed ice from his shoulders and side. “Children _are_ menaces. The worst. I know, I raised one. But you still need to learn to brake. Be a shame to lose Vibe in a freak skating accident.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m going to be so sore tomorrow,” Cisco complained, stretching his back.

“You’re welcome,” Harry replied, cracking his neck.

“I mean, thank you,” Cisco said hastily. “Yeah. Thanks for preventing my certain death.” He awkwardly slapped Harry’s shoulder.

Harry’s lips quirked. “Sure.” He looked Cisco up and down, seemed to find whatever he was looking for, and nodded to himself. 

Cisco found himself blushing, then blushing at the fact that he was blushing. Harry was just checking him over for injuries, probably.

_Not a date,_ he tried to remind himself. But it was difficult when Harry was being so… _himself_ . Snarky, but caring when it mattered. Words from the summer filtered up in Cisco’s memory, something Harry had said the first time they went to the market: _you can always trust me on the important things, Ramon._ And Cisco did. And it felt good, every time Harry was there for him.

How was Cisco supposed to distance himself from that?

The answer was: not particularly well.

After the averted disaster with the rogue child, Cisco slipped twice more - the result of paying more attention to Harry than to his own footing. Luckily, they were simple spills with no real danger. Falling was no hardship at all, actually, because each time, Harry was there to pull him up. And each time, Cisco’s traitorous heart loved the feeling of Harry’s hands in his when he was pulled to his feet. He loved the way Harry always lingered to make sure Cisco was steady before he stepped away. He loved that for those precious few seconds, it felt like Harry was finally close _enough_. Like Harry was his to hold. Like they belonged in an overlapping space together. 

The feeling was heady, and addicting, and it was making Cisco forget his resolve from just an hour earlier about not letting himself indulge in his illicit crush. Maybe… maybe this would just be the last time he let himself be silly about it. He could enjoy things for the rest of today, before he really got his act together, and got over the stupid affliction for good. Yeah. Where was the harm?

He slipped a third time, on purpose. And promptly sprained his wrist.

“For someone who invented a cold gun that harnesses absolute zero temperatures, you and the ice don’t seem to get along,” Harry commented while they sat together in a snowbank outside the rink, where Cisco was babying his wrist with a handful of snow. “You’re going to have trouble working or fighting for at least a few days.”

“I know,” Cisco said sourly.

“And that’s your primary breaching arm. Can you breach ambidextrously?” Harry asked, scratching his chin. “I’ve always wondered if your powers--”

“Yes, it’ll be fine,” Cisco snapped, embarrassed and in pain and angry at himself for being stupid.

Harry raised his eyebrows at him, and Cisco winced.

“Sorry,” Cisco said earnestly. “Wow, I’m being a jackass. Sorry. I just… feel like an idiot.” He blinked hard, eyes burning, and looked up at the sky. The upsetting swell of emotions in his chest went way beyond hurting his wrist. He knew Harry wasn’t interested. How many times would he have to remind himself to stop reaching for what he couldn’t have? _Don’t cry, don’t cry--_

“Well, you are an idiot,” Harry agreed, voice grave.

Cisco’s mouth dropped open in surprised hurt. When he looked over, though, Harry’s blue eyes were glinting with mischief, and his lips were tugging into a teasing smile. That smile was infectious. And charming. Damn the man.

“You know what,” Cisco said, helpless as he began to grin back, almost against his will. He looked down to escape Harry’s gaze. “I take it back. _You’re_ the jackass.” 

His insides were a tangled mess. That Harry knew him so well... it was the worst. Cisco was defenseless against it. He was defenseless against Harry being all sweet to cheer him up. Well, Harry’s version of sweet, anyway. Who else got to see that? Harry Wells, curmudgeonly and argumentative, always after the last word, needing to be right, incredibly rude at times... being sweet. Cisco swallowed around the lump in his throat. He was being silly again, of course. Harry being kind was no longer an anomaly. He’d made huge strides in his emotional intelligence since the early days. Everyone on Team Flash got to see the better sides of Harry on a regular basis. And Jesse certainly did.

Cisco’s experience here wasn’t special.

Cisco himself was not special. He--

“Augh!” he spluttered through a handful of cold, wet, _frozen_ snow that was suddenly making close and personal contact with his face and dripping into his collar. “ _Blegh!_ What the hell, Harry?!” he complained loudly as he wiped the frigid mess away one-handed as best he could, keeping his injured wrist still.

Harry flicked wet snow from his gloves. “You looked like you were being an idiot again.”

Cisco made a face at him, then sighed gustily and flopped back into the snowbank. “When does the actual farmers’ market open up again?”

“Springtime,” Harry replied. He began to push snow to cover Cisco’s arm. “Maybe I should just bury you here until then. Keep you from injuring yourself more. You’ll defrost around late March.”

“Hey!” Cisco took a handful of snow in his good hand and tossed it at Harry’s face.

Harry dodged it, smirking, and shoved a huge swath of snow over Cisco’s middle. “Time to go to sleep, Rip Van Ramon.”

“Terrible nickname,” Cisco retorted, squirming to escape. “And you already used it back when we all got trapped in the Pipeline after Nazis crashed Barry and Iris’s wedding.”

“What’s that? I can’t hear you,” Harry said, shovelling more snow over Cisco with his hands. “Your voice is getting so faint under the avalanche.”

Cisco flailed and accidentally kneed Harry in the gut, unbalancing him. Harry toppled and caught himself with his hands planted above Cisco’s shoulders.

They both froze. Harry’s face was just a foot from Cisco’s, hovering over him, his expression a little surprised but otherwise unreadable.

Cisco thought about leaning up to kiss him. It would be so perfect, so easy. Harry’s lips were reddened by the cold. Would they feel cold, too? Or warm from laughter? It would be so easy to find out...

….but then his uncomplicated friendship would be destroyed, and it would be awful, and he’d have even more confirmation of how undateable he was.

“We should go,” he said, a little too loudly, enough that Harry startled and sat up. Cisco relaxed as the distance between them opened up again. The temptation was gone. He wasn’t going to sabotage himself today.

“Alright,” Harry agreed as he sat on his heels, a neutral expression on his face. “You should get Snow to look at your wrist.”

Cisco tossed a handful of snow in the air. “Snow, ha-ha. The _snow_ has already seen it, and it’s so numb I can barely tell it’s still there,” he joked, but it came out lame, and Harry didn’t laugh. 

They went to the ice rink twice more before the winter season ended. 

Cisco didn’t fall again.

\---

It was finally springtime. The snow had melted, the frost had been chased away by the sun. Early wildflowers were appearing in hillsides and yards and road medians. 

Cisco was, for once, not with Harry.

He was at a plant nursery on Earth-1, standing in a veritable field of greenery in plastic containers. He tucked his hair behind his ears. Put his hands on his hips. Bent down to look more closely at a.. what did the label say? _Ar… argyranthemum frutescens_. Seemed like a big mouthful for just pink flowers with yellow centers.

_Sigh._

He was Cisco Ramon. He could build weapons that harnessed the elements. Hack into any system. Literally tear holes in space to travel to alternate universes. But the only plant he’d ever been able to keep alive was a small potted ficus, which someone later informed him was fake. He had no idea what he was doing here.

Luckily, the plant nursery staff could smell the indecision on him at a hundred paces. 

“Looking for anything in particular?”

Cisco turned to see an older man with a green staff apron smiling politely at him. Despite his wide-brimmed hat, the man’s face was lined by long hours in the sun, making the corners of his eyes extra crinkly around his smile. A large button on his work apron said _Staff Gardener - Ask Me Questions!_

“I…. yes?” Cisco replied. He smiled back, chagrined. “But I don’t know what I need.”

Well, he did know what he needed. _A coping mechanism._ That’s really what he was after. Some way to take what he loved about the Earth-2 farmers’ market, and reclaim it for himself, so he wouldn’t feel so attached to going there with Harry. 

If he did that, his crush - no, it was more than that, he knew now - his _feelings_ would hopefully diminish. And go into the West, and remain Galadriel. Actually… now that he was thinking about it, a Lord of the Rings marathon with Harry at the lab would be fun. Earth-2 only had animated films of the series, and it would be fun to introduce Harry to the live action trilogy that Earth-1 had done so well. Not even Harry would be able to argue it wasn’t something Earth-1 did better! They’d sit close on the workshop couch, too, and Harry would do that thing where he put his arm on the back of the couch behind Cisco’s head... Gah, no! He had to stop thinking like this. He needed to figure out how to move on, not dig himself deeper. 

A new hobby would be just the thing.

“Well, help is what I’m here for,” the man said kindly, unaware of Cisco’s inner turmoil. “What’s the general idea of what you want?”

“Well… I live in an apartment,” Cisco started. “I don’t have a yard or anything. And honestly? I’ve killed every plant I’ve tried to take care of before. And, wow, that’s a metaphor for personal relationships I never really thought about until this moment. But anyway! Yeah, uh, killed every plant I’ve owned. Except one that was fake. I mean, obviously that one doesn’t count. But there’s a farmers’ market that I go to a lot with a friend of mine that I probably shouldn’t anymore, because--- uh, because of some reasons, and so I thought maybe I should just try to grow some stuff myself--” 

Oh no, he was babbling. 

“Anyway! My, uh, friend, he’s always telling me I can do anything, so I thought I’d try growing stuff on the balcony. Um. Stuff I can eat, ideally? So yeah. I wanna grow stuff on my balcony. So I don’t have to go to that market so much with my friend anymore.”

The gardener’s silver eyebrows were a little higher than before, but his genial smile remained. “Well!" he said mildly, "I think we can certainly help you with plants for your balcony. Now, what direction is your balcony facing?”

“Uh,” Cisco floundered, his mind in a million places. “As in... what?”

“North, east, south, west,” the man explained kindly. “Do you see the sunrise? The sunset? Both or neither?”

“Both,” Cisco replied, thinking about how hot and sunny the place was in summer.

“That’s good!” said the gardener. “Means you’re probably south-facing. Lots of light, lots of sun. Perfect for growing a lot of edible things that won’t thrive in full shade.”

Cisco shifted on his feet. “Very cool, very good. Great. Um, what should I be planting?”

The look on the gardener’s face was one of practiced patience. “There are a lot of plants that will do well in a sunny balcony, as long as they’re in the right container and get the right amount of water. Is there anything from your farmers’ market you really like?”

Cisco thought. Yeah… he liked pretty much everything. The fruit was best. That meant berries, cherries, plums, apricots, and peaches. But most of those were trees, and he certainly couldn’t fit a tree on his balcony.

“Berries?” he said, mostly a question. “Like… blueberries, or strawberries.”

The man nodded. “Ah, yes, very possible. Strawberries do quite well in pots, especially in full sun. They’re thirsty little things, but if you water them carefully you can get an excellent crop all season.”

“And blueberries? I mean, what do they even grow on?” Cisco asked. He still remembered the start of everything - the box of blueberries and the ' _sorry not sorry’_ note. Maybe he could… reclaim the situation, somehow. 

"Small shrubs," The gardener answered evenly. “They have deeper root systems, so they need bigger containers, but if you have the space you could certainly do it. You’ll need at least two plants so they can pollinate each other.”

Cisco thought about his small balcony. He thought about Harry saying, _‘you’re Cisco Ramon, you can do anything’_ . And _‘your workmanship is unparalleled’_.

“Let’s do both,” he decided. “I can make it work.”

A few hours later he was on his balcony, surrounded by plants, with soil under his fingernails, on the ground, and all over his nice skinny jeans (he’d been so focused he’d forgotten to change). The afternoon sun licked at the back of his neck as he carefully filled containers with soil and transplanted the young strawberry plants and blueberry shrubs. 

There was a drip irrigation system to water everything, too - the staff gardener had told him it wasn’t strictly necessary, but Cisco had been itching to engineer something. He was good at building things. If he could use what he was good at, maybe he could overcome his innate ability to kill plants. 

So: he had several coils of thin, flexible tubing to carry water. He had tiny valves that would dispense water right into the pots when attached to the tubes. He had soil moisture sensors. He had an infrared camera to detect soil heat levels. He may or may not have harvested a bunch of research data about ideal soil heat and water levels for strawberries and blueberries, and turned it into a response algorithm for a custom plant water management program that synced with all his gadgets and streamed live feedback to his phone. There was also a webcam to make sure he could check in on everything at any time.

Okay, so he _may_ have gone a little overboard. 

But hey! He was a superhero, so there were definitely going to be times he forgot to water the plants, or couldn’t be at his apartment for a while. This was just good planning. The next step - the hardest step - was going to be to stop being so close to Harry all the time. It was clear his feelings weren’t going away on their own. 

He needed to take action. 

He needed to create distance.

So, the next time Harry asked him to join on a trip to Earth-2, Cisco said no. 

“I need to finish this,” he said, not looking up from the project he was working on. It wasn’t urgent, and he didn’t need to finish it. His shoulders hunched defensively.

“Okay,” Harry replied, after a pause. “I’ll bring back some things for you.”

“Thanks.” Cisco repeated the same small adjustment to his mechanism over and over. 

Harry gave him a brief, searching look. And then he left.

Cisco let out a breath.

He felt… well, not good. Turning down a chance for quality time with Harry felt awful. Harry himself had probably been confused. But it was for the best. It was all for the best, that Cisco would finally get over himself and his _crush_ and move on. His friendship with Harry was too important to lose over unrequited feelings. 

When he went home, he spent an hour on his balcony, sitting on an upturned 5-gallon bucket among his strawberry and blueberry plants. He spent most of that time thinking about Harry. 

When he wasn’t thinking about Harry, he was googling local Earth-1 farmer’s markets. There had to be some equivalent here. Something he could use as a replacement, just like the plants on his balcony. The next weekend, he refused Harry’s invitation again, and struck out to visit a few local markets. They were pretty good. Honestly, some of the produce was almost as tasty as on Earth-2. Maybe the same. But the atmosphere was wrong, and it felt different being there alone. 

He didn’t go back.

A few weeks passed, and the plants on his balcony grew. 

One of the strawberries was ripe. Cisco had watched it grow from a tiny green pip to a recognizable fruit the size of a large marble, and with each day it blushed a little more rosy. After a terrible day fighting with a meta who gave his victims waking nightmares, Cisco decided it was time to reward himself with the simple pleasure of enjoying the literal fruit of his labors.

The strawberry separated neatly from its leafy crown when he tugged it, and he brightened - his internet research had told him that meant that it was fully ripe. It smelled right, too: ruby-flower-sugar, like memories of hot summers. He put it right under his nose and inhaled deeply a few times. 

Then he laughed at himself. He was treating it like a glass of fancy wine. He took in the aroma one more time, then popped it in his mouth.

It was good! Tangy and sweet, and his mouth puckered pleasantly. Though… now that he was chewing, it was… a little grainy? And after the initial taste, the flavor didn’t have the same depth or intensity as what he was used to on Earth-2, or even locally grown strawberries he’d had on Earth-1. His shoulders slumped a little, and he put his hands on his hips, still chewing thoughtfully. He smacked his lips. 

Yeah. Overall, it was a disappointment. But when he thought about it, he was rather proud to have achieved something at all, considering his murderous history with plants. None of these had died, and they had flourished enough to produce fruit. He’d done it! He was Cisco Ramon! He could do anything! 

And that thought, of course, made him want to share it with Harry. 

Which he shouldn’t. Even if the strawberries had been way better than on Earth-2, or the best strawberries in the multiverse-- he shouldn’t. It seemed... oddly too personal. Too revealing. If Harry knew about the garden, Cisco would have to explain why he’d started it, or try to badly lie about it, and it would get awkward, and that would be that. No - better to keep it his own little secret for as long as possible.

So he did. And he was grimly proud of it.

Caitlin knew about it, but that had been an accident.

“Whatcha watching?” She’d asked, leaning over his monitor. Her head tilted cutely. “Security feed?”

Cisco barely stopped himself from frantically hitting ALT + Tab. It was just a garden, for godsake.

“Sorta,” he said, the pinnacle of casual. “Just some potted plants at home. I’ve got a drip irrigation system set up, and I like to be able to check in. Make sure nothing’s happened. Suck if the thing broke and flooded the place or spiked my water bill, you know?”

“You’re growing plants?” Caitlin asked, intrigued. “That’s so… not what I’d expect one of your hobbies to be!” Which was really a delicate way of saying that Cisco had accidentally (and very thoroughly) killed her desk fern by overwatering it when she was away for a week. Officer, yes, I’d like to report a plant murder: it was Cisco, in the medlab, with the water spritzer. RIP Sherman the Fern.

“Yeah, I know, me neither,” Cisco said. “I just… wanted to figure it out, so I _scienced_ it. Now I’m like, a regular green thumb. You know. Got dem skillz.”

Caitlin put her hands on her hips. “Well, I’m impressed.” Her expression turned sly, which only looked adorable on her cupcake-sweet face. “Good for you for _branching_ out.”

“Ugh, that was so bad,” Cisco groaned, cracking a smile. “I can’t believe you've done this.”

“Believe it, Cisco Ramon,” Caitlin giggled, like she’d done something far more egregious than a bad pun. “You’re not the only one who can serve up witty quips!”

“You have done well, grasshopper,” Cisco replied gravely.

“So what are you growing?” Caitlin asked, turning back to the screen.

“Strawberries, blueberries,” Cisco answered. “Figured I might as well try for something useful.”

“Inspired by Earth-2?” Caitlin asked. “You and Harry have such a nice tradition of visiting that farmers’ market. It’s sweet.”

Cisco shifted in his chair. “They have kick-ass funnel cakes. _Those_ are sweet.”

Caitlin tilted her head, as though she didn’t quite understand his response, but also like she suspected Cisco was teasing her. “Well, _I_ think it’s sweet,” she said finally. “But I couldn’t help but notice that you haven’t gone for a while. Everything okay?” Her brow creased in sugary-earnest concern.

Cisco fidgeted again. Was everyone noticing the change?

“I’ve just been busy,” he hedged. “You know how it be sometimes. Work gets crazy.”

Caitlin gave a dainty shrug. “Sure. It just seemed like… you both are a little down, lately.”

That made Cisco straighten up. “Harry looks sad?”

Caitlin shrugged again. “Yeah, just a little. Because I know you two, and you’re practically bouncing off the walls when you’re happy. Or bouncing something else off the walls, if you’re Harry,” she smiled, lopsided. “I just hope everything’s okay.”

“Yeah,” Cisco hastened to assure her. “Everything’s fine. We just… disagreed about a project a while back, and I think he’s sulking.” He rolled his eyes for effect.

“If you say so,” Caitlin said, though she didn’t look entirely convinced. 

“Yeah, it’s all good,” Cisco beamed at her determinedly. 

Caitlin gave him a look, then sighed and patted his arm. “Well, you know I’m here if you need to talk about anything.” Then she lowered her voice conspiratorially, and her expression became mischievous. “Just between us, I may have sneaked a couple of plums from the minifridge. They’re so good.”

“I’m friends with a criminal,” Cisco deadpanned.

“I prefer the term ‘vigilante’,” Caitlin said primly.

Cisco clenched his fist dramatically. “The real Fruit Ninja! I knew it!”

Caitlin laughed. “Don’t tell Harry.”

“I take a vow of silence, scout’s honor,” Cisco promised. He was the last person who could throw shade for taking Harry’s Earth-2 snacks, after all.

“You’ve never been a Scout a day in your life, Cisco Ramon, and you know it,” Caitlin replied, eyes twinkling. She leaned against the desk, eyes back on the screen. “So what bit you to grow a jungle in your apartment?” she asked.

_It makes me think of Harry, who I’m desperately in love with_. 

No, no. He couldn’t say that.

Cisco shrugged, casual to the tips of his toes. “The Earth-2 Market Quarter has a chill vibe, is all. It made me want to recreate a little of it at home.”

Caitlin hummed and tapped her chin. “You know what would be a great addition? A hammock. I had one on my apartment balcony during med school. I even slept out there on summer nights sometimes!”

That... actually sounded like an amazing idea.

Later that evening, Cisco moved the plants around until there was enough space to string a hammock at an angle between two sides of the railing. It was easy enough to find one online - though he lingered, comparing tensile strength and weather resistance and technical elements of woven rope, canvas, and lightweight nylon taffetta. Being all _Cisco Ramon_ about it.

In the end, he chose one that was technical fabric (he couldn’t not, alright?). Functional and comfortable. Cozy, comfortable. Built for one. 

It was a perfect addition to his little balcony garden paradise.

He rested in it often, finding peace and quiet after harrowing meta fights, prolonged investigations, and hours of eye-strain looking at monitors in the lab. His over-engineered water management program served him well; the plants thrived despite his duties to Team Flash and the unpredictable hours that came with. It was a comfort to know the garden was waiting for him whenever he came home.

Harry, the man of stubborn habit, continued to ask him if he wanted to join in the market trip each weekend.

“Earth-2 lost its charm for you?” Harry asked him bluntly one Saturday morning, after Cisco refused yet again. He hefted his backpack in preparation to leave for the market, and cinched the straps. “We can find something else to do, if you want.” 

“No! It’s great,” Cisco replied hastily from his work bench. “I just… wanna focus on some things here.” He’d continued to rely on his projects as an excuse for not joining Harry on their usual trip. 

It seemed the excuse was wearing thin, because Harry narrowed his eyes. “You’ve been “focusing” for the last six weeks. Not buying it.” 

“Of course you’re not buying it, Earth-2 money can’t buy anything here,” Cisco joked, but it felt stale even to his own ears.

“Okay,” Harry replied, looking at him oddly. After a moment the fight went out of his posture. He licked his lips, and looked away. “Well. You can always join me later, if you decide you want to.”

“Yeah.” Cisco began to feel like the desk in front of him was a necessary barrier between him and Harry. Something, anything, to remind him of the distance he should be keeping. “Yeah, I will. But, no promises. This ultra-sonic electron cycler looks like it’s gonna be a doozy. So. Yeah.”

“...Yeah.” Harry said. He delayed awkwardly for a few more seconds, then rubbed the back of his neck. “Later, Ramon.”

And then he left, taking all the air out of the room with him.

Cisco slumped heavily in his chair. This felt… worse than ‘not good’. This felt _awful_. What if, in trying to protect his friendship with Harry, he destroyed it anyway? Was it hopeless? Was he just doomed to be miserable?

He pulled out his phone and brought up a video feed of his balcony to check on the plants. Something had to be going right. Right?

“All squadrons report in,” he murmured as he examined the screen.

The Rebel Fleet were all still there, leafy, green, and ostensibly growing. The soil temp and water levels looked fine. Zooming in with the webcam showed him that the strawberries still had all their white blooms and green pips that would become fruit. The blueberries were flowering. 

The plants were fine.

Cisco himself was not fine.

He sighed. Growing his own plants was really not going to do anything useful for him, was it? It had been such a stupid idea. Why would he think he could somehow replace Earth-2 markets with-- with-- _amateur gardening_ ? All it did was make him think _more_ about Harry. Times they had had, and what Harry would think about his accomplishments. Whether Harry would be impressed. 

Which… if he was being honest with himself, was probably why the idea had appealed to him so much in the first place. It was also why local Earth-1 markets hadn’t scratched the itch - they’d been missing the key ingredient: Harry. All this time, Cisco hadn’t been separating himself from his feelings. He’d been leaning _into_ them. All while neglecting Harry himself, and confusing the hell out of the man. 

He was being a terrible friend again. It needed to stop.

Before he could overthink it, he stood up and opened a breach to Earth-2, into the woods around Market Street Station where he knew no one would be. He reached the path and only had to wait a few minutes before Harry walked past, looking a bit sad. Seeing him like that made Cisco felt even worse.

“Hey!” he said, walking out to meet him.

“Ramon-- what-?” Harry asked, alarmed. “I thought you had to finish your project.” He glanced around, as though expecting Cisco had come on account of some kind of threat.

Cisco bit his lip and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, I decided it could wait.”

And didn’t the universe just settle back into place a little Harry’s face bloomed into a small smile, surprised but pleased. “Good,” he said, clasping Cisco’s shoulder. “Good. Come on. I’m starving.”

They had a great time. Cisco felt guilty about how much he was enjoying basking in Harry’s attention, but he couldn’t just… stop. Not when being together again clearly made Harry so happy. Not when it made _Cisco_ so happy. It was making him realize by contrast just how miserable he’d been the last month.

So, Cisco resumed saying yes to their weekly trips. He stopped trying to create distance and build barriers. Because if he was going to enjoy this whole thing? He might as well _really_ enjoy it. Sort of like throwing a party while you were stuck on an asteroid headed for the sun. Except the 'sun' was Harry realizing Cisco was in love with him, and the implosion of their friendship that would no doubt follow. 

Because, yeah. Cisco hadn’t just caught feels. He’d landed himself with a terminal case of romance. It was inevitable that Harry would put it all together, some day. The best Cisco could do was enjoy the time left before it all came crashing down. Maybe... if he kept his balcony garden a secret, that time would be a little longer. He resolved to make sure Harry didn't have any reasons to stop by his apartment.

Of course, as the multiverse liked to occasionally demonstrate its cosmic whim, Harry ended up finding out about the garden the following Tuesday.

The two of them were driving back to Earth-1 STAR Labs. It was a sticky-hot summer afternoon, and they’d picked up Big Belly Burger after a long stakeout. Cisco noshed on fries out of the bag as he sat in the passenger seat. He was busy chasing after a dropped ketchup packet on the floor when his phone blared an alert noise.

“Ow!” he yelped as he jerked his head up and bonked it on the glove box. “Of all the times--” 

He scrambled to dig out his phone.

“Meta alert?” Harry said, posture on edge as he gripped the steering wheel, ready to head right back the way they’d come.

Cisco tapped urgently on his screen. “No, no-- not that. It’s-- dammit, I knew this would happen eventually!”

It was his water management system app, displaying urgent warnings that the primary valve in the drip system had malfunctioned, spraying water everywhere.

“What? What is it?” Harry asked urgently.

“No-- it’s fine, can you just pull over? I need to breach home.”

Harry took a hard left and stepped on the gas. “We’re three blocks from your place, Ramon. I’ll just take you there. What’s going on?”

Cisco was quiet for a moment as he considered all the care he’d taken to keep his little Secret Garden hidden from Harry, and how that was all about to be meaningless.

“Ramon?” Harry repeated, looking over at him, energy torqued up in the face of this unknown threat.

“It’s just a water pipe that burst,” Cisco replied belatedly as they pulled up to his apartment complex with a screech of the van’s brakes.

“Why didn’t you say so?” Harry grunted, throwing his door open. “You breach, I’ll follow with the food.”

Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Cisco took the escape route where it was offered, and jumped out of the van into a breach.

Once inside the cool air of his apartment he rushed to the balcony door. The spray of water was still blasting against the glass, and there was no way to open it without getting water everywhere inside the apartment. Cisco took a deep breath, centered himself, and opened a second, smaller, and much more precise breach directly onto his balcony. 

As he stepped through on the other side back into the heat, he belatedly realized it was as good as shouting from the rooftops to any onlookers that Vibe lived in this apartment. Oops. Honestly he had his doubts about the security of his identity anyway. His hair was pretty distinctive, and the baristas at Jitters were always giving him Vibe-accino drinks by apparent “mistake”, though there was certainly a lot of winking and giggling for it to be an accident. Well - it meant free drinks, at least.

But that was neither here nor there. He had plants to save. 

It was the work of a few seconds to turn off the spigot, and Cisco sighed in relief as the blast of water ceased. He checked each potted plant and found that none had been in the line of fire - er, water. Good. No damage or overwatering. Then he winced and looked over the edge of the railing to the balcony below, which had gotten the brunt of the water runoff. How angry were his downstairs neighbors going to be? Luckily, the only thing they had out there was a pair of dilapidated lawn chairs. Maybe the afternoon heat would evaporate the water before they even noticed.

He jumped at the sound of the sliding glass door opening. It was Harry.

“How did you get in?” Cisco asked, pulse quick as he watched Harry take in the little jungle of plants, the hammock, and Cisco himself. “My front door was locked.”

“You need better locks,” Harry replied easily. “It’s no wonder people keep walking into STAR Labs.”

“Hey!” Cisco squawked. “My security is perfectly--”

“Horrible,” Harry finished for him. “Don’t worry, you make up for it with pretty much everything else.”

Cisco didn’t know what to say to that, and he gaped inelegantly for several seconds.

Harry took this opportunity to crouch down and take a better look at the potted strawberries. He ran a finger down the drip line to the custom soil sensor, and tapped it. “Like this, for instance. I sense some Cisco Ramon flair here.”

Cisco blushed. “I just automated some stuff.”

Harry sent him a reproachful glance. “False modesty, Ramon. I don’t think the average home garden is linked to a custom-coded app.”

Cisco rolled his eyes. “Ooh, ‘ _don’t be proud_ , Cisco, wait, _do be proud_ , Cisco’. Make up your mind what you want from me, would you?”

Harry stood up again and crossed his arms. “I don’t understand why you keep pretending you’re bad at the things you’re good at, and good at the things that aren’t your strengths. It’s your capability that matters. You could improve your security if you put in the time. You’re Cisco Ramon, you--”

“--can do anything, I know. You’ve said.” Cisco tucked his hair behind his ears. “Kind of a lot, actually.”

“It’s true,” Harry replied simply. 

The puddle under Cisco’s shoes made little _split-splat_ noises as he flattened the sole of his shoe on it a few times. He’d definitely need to work on drainage. Elevate the pots maybe? Troughs for runoff? 

“Well, this thing is a work in progress,” Cisco said, still very interested in his shoe. “Clearly not perfect yet, considering.” He gave the water another little splat.

Harry frowned, then disappeared back into the apartment. When he reappeared, he was holding the Big Belly Burger bag and a toolkit Cisco kept in his make-shift home lab. He set the toolkit on a dry patch of cement and, with a contented groan, settled into the hammock with the Big Belly Burger.

“What are you doing?” Cisco asked, feeling lost.

“Testing whether you chose an adequate hammock,” Harry replied. “I’m skeptical.”

“You critiquing my furniture decisions now?” Cisco raised his eyebrows.

“I’m keeping you company while you fix your ‘work in progress’,” Harry answered. He was almost too long for the hammock, his booted feet shifted to rest on the railing, but he looked absurdly comfortable there. He reached into the BBB bag and pulled out his burger. “Don’t worry, I’ll only eat your share if you’re slow.”

Cisco stared at him unsurely for a long moment. When Harry unfortunately failed to jump into a five-paragraph essay of useful information, Cisco shook himself, grabbed his toolkit, and got to work. With the temperatures so hot in midsummer, he couldn’t risk leaving the watering system unconnected any longer than he had to. One or two days and his babies would be crispy. 

He dropped into the rhythm and comfort of problem-solving very quickly. Harry’s presence was just... there. It was comforting too, in a way. Now that his secret had been discovered, Cisco realized that he’d been half-expecting Harry to see the little garden and shout, _‘You! You’re in love with me!’_ as though Cisco’s emotional turmoil was somehow written on every leaf and planter. But Harry wasn’t saying anything. Maybe, like Caitlin, he hadn’t taken more than a passing interest in Cisco’s new hobby. 

Cisco was dimly aware of Harry finishing his burger and drink, and heading inside to wash up. 

By the time the last gasket was tightened, Harry was settled back into the hammock, a couple pages into Cisco’s much-beloved copy of _Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_. His bold-framed reading glasses had appeared. He’d also removed his boots, which were set neatly by the door. 

He looked like he belonged there, and it made Cisco’s heart ache. 

“You better have left my burger,” Cisco said, putting his tools back in his kit. He shuffled over on his knees to grab the Big Belly Burger bag Harry had set aside. His burger was still there, along with his half-eaten fries. It was only lukewarm now, but he was hungry, and Big Belly Burger was always delicious. He sat cross-legged on the drying cement to devour it. 

Harry ignored him, except to idly comment as he turned a page, “We don’t have this book on Earth-2. Shame.”

“Oh my god,” Cisco replied through a mouthful of fries. “The great Harry Wells admitting Earth-1 did something better?”

“I acknowledge it on the rare occasions it happens,” Harry replied mildly. Too mildly. When he took a breath to continue, Cisco’s _Harry-Bullshit-o-Meter_ started pinging red alerts. “For instance,” Harry said, still pretending to read his fucking book, “By all accounts, the Earth-2 version of Francisco Ramon was an outrageous douchecanoe. You’re certainly an improvement.”

Cisco pursed his lips. “Wow. So I’m better than a psychotic megalomaniac. Great. Low bar, Harry. Thanks.” 

“You’re welcome.” Harry’s eyes were still firmly on the book, but the quirked corner of his mouth showed how much he was enjoying this. 

Cisco flicked a ketchup packet at him. It missed, and sailed right through the railing off the edge of the balcony.

“Shit,” Cisco snorted, scrambling up. He leaned over Harry’s legs to peer at the alley below. “No casualties,” he reported.

Harry looked up at him, amused. Cisco was struck again by how _comfortable_ he looked. And... good. In Cisco’s experience, Harry was a man of constant movement and agitation. He was handsome when he was riled up, but seeing him relaxed and happy? That held a different kind of appeal that was just as dangerous. 

It was making it hard not to want. 

Harry licked his index finger and turned the next page of his book. “You can’t kill someone with a ketchup packet, Ramon. You’d need to freeze it, and find some way to accelerate it beyond terminal velocity.”

Cisco bit back a laugh. “I really don’t think _The Ketchup Gun_ would have the same ring to it as my other stuff.”

Harry’s answering smile was small, easy, and slipped through Cisco’s ribs to his heart like a knife. “Might make a killing at the local diner, though.”

Ohh boy. See, this was why Cisco had done his best to keep Harry away from his apartment for the last few months. Here, alone, with no one to interrupt them, he was quickly swept up into the current of longing. He crossed his arms and gave Harry a dirty look, trying to redirect. “You commandeer my hammock, you give me terrible compliments, you make outlandish suggestions,” he complained. “You’re a pest, Harry Wells.”

Harry smiled a little wider. “I care for you too, Ramon.”

Cisco huffed and leaned his elbows on the railing. The alleyway several stories below was the same alleyway it had always been. The sun was starting to lower, throwing long shadows against the buildings. One of the tenants of the opposite building was hanging up laundry, colorful shirts and blouses swaying in the warm breeze. Muted piano music floated up from an apartment down below; someone was practicing scales.

“No reason we couldn’t both fit in the hammock, though.”

“What?” Cisco looked over, nonplussed. He couldn’t have heard that right. 

“You said I commandeered it,” Harry answered, still reading. “But you could always join me, unless you plan to lean on that railing all evening.” His gaze flickered up for just the briefest second before refocusing on _Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_. He licked his index finger again and turned the page.

Had Cisco stepped into a parallel universe? 

Er- a _different_ parallel universe, one they didn’t know about? Or had he maybe fallen asleep, and was now dreaming? He’d certainly had dreams about Harry reciprocating his feelings, and honestly getting cozy in a hammock would be very on-brand for his fantasies... or, well, the PG ones anyway. 

As surreptitiously as he could, Cisco pinched his forearm. It hurt. So unless some kind of meta illusion was at work here, this was real. 

How terrifying. 

Gears started to grind in Cisco’s head. Harry was a tactile guy, Cisco knew, but platonic cuddling was a new development, one the universe seemed to have deployed specifically for the emotional torture of one Cisco Ramon.

“You... want me to join you,” he said, slowly and cautiously. 

“Unless you bought a flimsy hammock,” Harry replied, the epitome of casual. “Then it probably wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“Hey, I chose a great hammock,” Cisco retorted automatically, then blushed as he realized the position he’d put himself in. Harry raised his eyebrows pointedly, as if to say, _well then?_

Cisco waffled for a full breath. Then another. And then he remembered: he was on that asteroid, headed for the sun. His affection was incurable, and therefore, Harry would find out eventually. Might as well throw a party on the way to certain destruction.

“Fine,” he said before he could overthink it. “Budge over.”

A faint look of surprise brightened Harry’s face. He shifted his weight over, though there wasn’t much room to begin with. They were going to be squished in like sardines.

Cisco took another breath.

_Asteroid headed for the sun. Party._

It was awkward, clambering into the narrow cradle of fabric. There were far too many knees and elbows, even as Harry held one arm up, holding _Hitchhiker’s Guide_ safely out of the way. They did manage it, however, with Cisco turned on his side, his head on Harry’s shoulder. There was nowhere convenient to put his arms. After a moment of indecision his hand came to rest on Harry's chest, as lightly as if he was touching an active landmine. 

“See, that’s better,” Harry said mildly, like this insane situation was just… putting a wedge under a wobbly table leg, or some other simple fix. The hand holding _Hitchhiker’s Guide_ descended, and he opened the book again with a flick of his wrist.

Cisco swallowed around a lump in his throat the size of the Death Star. “Yeah.” Could Harry feel how hard his heart was pounding, now that they were pressed together from knee to chest? 

If Harry could, he didn’t say anything. He simply resumed reading his book. Whenever he got to the end of a page, he would put the book down on his stomach to turn it one handed. 

After the fourth time he did this, Cisco reached out and turned the next page for him. _Asteroid headed for the sun_ , he thought. Live in the moment. Enjoy every second. And... Harry was enabling it. At the end of the next page he simply tilted the book towards Cisco to indicate he was ready for it to be turned. And Cisco did. How could he not?

And repeat.

The afternoon was late, but the warmth hadn’t faded from the air; the approach of evening had merely tempered it from sticky-hot to soothing, and it wrapped around them like a soft blanket. It had been a long day, all things considered. Stakeouts required constant alertness for hours and hours. And they hadn’t discovered anything before calling it quits, which was its own element of fatigue. Before long, Cisco’s eyelids were drooping. His heart rate evened out, and his breathing deepened. He didn’t see when Harry closed _Hitchhiker’s Guide_ , but he did hear the rustle of pages and feel the hammock sway as Harry put it carefully on the ground.

Harry sighed, his chest rising and falling under Cisco’s cheek. Then Cisco felt a touch on his head, a nice one, gently moving through his curls. 

It disappeared for a second. Then, Cisco felt it again.

“Are you playing with my hair?” he mumbled, half-asleep. 

The touch stilled. “...Yes.” 

Cisco sighed, suspended in a syrupy sweet stupor. “Don’ stop, feels nice.” 

“Sure.” 

Harry resumed finger-combing. 

Cisco sank deeper into bliss. A faint, familiar smell tickled his nose - the honey-scented hand soap he kept next to the kitchen sink. Harry must have used it when he washed up. On the next pass, there was just the slightest hint of fingernails against Cisco’s scalp, and a pleasant shiver rippled from his scalp down to the base of his spine. 

Guh.

_Best asteroid party ever._

Surely, he must be dreaming by this point. It was all too strange. Like that first time they’d ambled through the woods, the trees encircling them, and Cisco had felt like… anything was possible. He had that feeling again. It was dangerous.

After a minute or maybe a century, Cisco felt compelled to speak.

“You know,” he said, blinking sleepily. “I really like going to the farmer’s market with you.”

When Harry replied, Cisco could feel the rumble of the words in his chest. “I gathered, based on the fact that you’ve been coming with me nearly every week for a year.”

Cisco huffed. “Don’t get smart.”

“I am smart. Already happened.” The smile in Harry’s voice was audible.

Cisco sighed fondly and resisted the urge to pinch him. If he pinched Harry, the hair-petting might stop. “Whatever. I’m trying to say… I want to say… it’s not just because Earth-2 agriculture is bomb.”

“Well that’s a relief.”

“Hm?” Cisco asked, distracted as he tilted his head to direct the scritches where he wanted.

“It would be a shame if you were dating me just for the produce benefits.”

Cisco froze. Except for his heart, which went roaring from 0 to 60 in the space of a breath. Because there was a word in that sentence, a forbidden word that he’d only allowed himself to even think in the context of _NOT. Never. No-way. In your dreams._

“...Dating?” he repeated, his sleepiness vaporizing.

“Or whatever you want to call it,” Harry amended easily. He carded his fingers through Cisco’s hair again.

Cisco blinked, stupefied. “We’re not dating. None of those trips were dates.” He was sure of it. He’d made sure to remind himself of it. Constantly.

Harry snorted. “Yes they were. Dates. We’re dating.”

“I-- But-- We haven’t even _kissed!_ ” Cisco protested.

Harry sighed. “You’ve given me the impression you want to be wooed. I’ve been doing my best, but you can be hard to read. But it’s fine. I don’t care about the pace.”

Cisco opened his mouth a few times, but no sound came out. “I didn’t think we were dating,” he insisted weakly, stuck on the phrase.

“Do you cuddle in hammocks with other people you’re not dating?” Harry asked archly. The arm nestled under Cisco’s shoulders squeezed pointedly.

“I- uh, I-” Cisco stammered, feeling overwhelmed and backwards and upside-down. “You’re really tactile? And so am I? And people cuddle all the time. It doesn’t have to mean anything!”

“Doesn’t have to--” Harry repeated, sounding truly confused. “Don’t be absurd.”

“I’m not! I really thought that’s what was happening,” Cisco insisted. He _wanted_ it to mean something, so badly, but now up was down and left was right, and he was mostly focused on how much he apparently didn’t understand what was going on.

There was a pause. “You’re... serious.”

“...Yes? That’s really what I thought.”

Harry was quiet for a long moment. He inhaled, his chest pressing against Cisco where they were squished together. When he let out the breath, there was a tension in his frame that hadn’t been there before. Cisco immediately disliked it, and he disliked it even more when Harry’s hand slipped away from Cisco’s hair and retreated to awkwardly lay at his own side.

“It seems there’s been a… misunderstanding,” Harry said stiffly, painfully, as if each word was a labor. His pulse, tangible now under Cisco’s weight, was a frantic _thump-thump-thump_. “I’d get up and leave you alone, but you’re. On top of me.”

Panic curled Cisco’s fingers in Harry’s shirt. “No.”

“...No?” Harry asked, an edge of helpless frustration creeping in. “Ramon, make sense.”

“I don’t want you to go,” Cisco managed. He was still recalibrating. Words flitted across his thoughts, too quick to catch and use, too flimsy and inadequate. What Harry was telling him was too good to be true. Dating? No. Couldn’t be. No way had they spent the last year dating without Cisco realizing it. Was this a bad joke? No. Harry could always be trusted about the important things. And this was important.

Harry, oblivious to Cisco's turmoil, took a short breath. “So you want… the being tactile thing. But not… me,” he replied. His tone was horribly blank.

It was a statement, but Cisco could hear the horrible question within it. And it hurt that Harry might think Cisco was capable of that kind of selfishness - that he’d hear Harry confess his feelings, not reciprocate, and continue to take advantage. Then again… it was clear they both had some serious gaps in understanding. About everything. 

He needed to explain.

“I want… I want…” Cisco started, then huffed in irritation at himself. This should have all been easy! “I mean-- you always seem to know what I mean, even when I’m not saying the exact words. And you were right! Not the ‘not you’ thing. The first thing you thought. Er, assumed, this whole time. The only problem was that _I_ didn’t know. What you knew. Or what you thought about it.” 

Holy Hannah, what a mess! After so long avoiding the conversation, verbalizing the situation was like pulling his own teeth. He was definitely fucking it up, because Harry was getting even _more_ tense. Cisco rallied his thoughts with effort and took a breath.

“Harry, I spent the entire last year _wishing_ we were dating, and thinking we weren’t, because you weren’t interested.”

There was an incredulous silence. Cisco could feel it yawning wider and wider, until the gravitational pull of it robbed him of the rest of his dignity. 

“...You’re an idiot,” Harry told him, finally.

“Can I propose that we’re both idiots?” Cisco asked, squeezing his eyes shut as he focused on the rise and fall of Harry’s chest. “It’s not like either of us ever _actually_ said anything.”

“You didn’t let me,” Harry pointed out. “I tried to, that first day in the woods. And outside the corn maze. And after you sprained your wrist ice skating.” 

“I did n--- you know what, okay, that’s fair,” Cisco groaned, chagrined. He turned his face against Harry’s chest. “I thought you were gonna let me down gently, okay? I didn’t want to have to hear it. I wanted to just... have the hots for you in peace, and slowly wither away from unrequited love.”

His stomach fluttered as Harry’s arm slid tentatively across his middle. When Harry sighed, Cisco could feel the warmth of it against the crown of his head.

“Cisco Ramon, you’re one of a kind.” The words were quiet, and warm, like sunlight dappling onto the forest floor.

“...You know, I feel like we’ve skipped a lot,” Cisco said faintly.

“Speak for yourself,” Harry grumbled. “I knew exactly where we were this whole time. Or at least I did until about ten minutes ago.” Fingers began to sift through Cisco’s hair again. “I meant it though, you know. That I don’t care about pace. Even less, now we actually understand each other. Take as long as you need to catch up.”

Cisco propped his chin up on Harry’s chest. “That’s sweet. But I’d really like that kiss now, actually.”

Harry laughed. Cisco grinned, and the hammock squeaked and swayed as Harry shifted himself onto his elbow to get a better angle while Cisco looked up at him.

It was the first time they’d looked at each other since laying down. Harry’s face was creased with happiness, his eyes dancing-- but Cisco didn’t have too long to admire him, because then Harry was moving down, and there were soft lips on his.

Worth waiting for? Hell yes. Was he going to be kicking himself about this for months? Also yes. He could have been kissing Harry for almost a _year_ now! If he’d just let Harry speak his mind, way back on their first trip. Talk about self-sabotage.

When Harry began to pull away, Cisco chased after him. “Nooo, where are you going?”

There was a chuckle. “I wanted to look at you.”

“You see me all the time,” Cisco complained. 

“Not right after I’ve kissed you, I don’t,” Harry pointed out. He shifted back, and his eyes raked over Cisco’s face. “There,” he said, grinning. “Now I know.”

Cisco blushed under the scrutiny. “Okay.” He licked his lips.

Harry’s eyes zeroed in on the movement, _target acquired_ , and he leaned down for another kiss, slower than the first. Cisco sighed into it. 

It was then that one of the hammock strings snapped. The force of it dumped the pair of them onto the ground in an unceremonious heap, and knocked over one of the strawberry buckets.

“My babies!” Cisco gasped in dismay, hearing it fall.

Harry’s chest rumbled, and at first Cisco thought he was coughing, but then laughter came out on a wheeze.

“I’m fine, Ramon, thanks for asking,” Harry said, levering himself up and rubbing a sore elbow. He bent it experimentally, then, satisfied, leaned over with a grunt and carefully righted the strawberry bucket. “Why is this labeled _Red Five_?” he asked, squinting at the Sharpie label.

“They’re the Rogue Squadron,” Cisco answered, winded, because it was far more important than their mishap. “Rebel fleet. Red Leader, Red Ten, Red Seven, Red Three, Red Five, you know - all the rest.”

_“Red Six standing by,”_ Harry intoned.

Cisco grinned. “Exactly.”

“So what’s the Death Star in this analogy of yours?”

Honestly, Cisco hadn’t thought that far. “Uh… Scurvy? Destroyed by the power of vitamin C!”

Harry’s mouth quirked. “I like it.” Then looked down at Cisco. “You’re not hurt?”

“Just my dignity,” Cisco replied, sitting up and wincing. “Ooh. And my tailbone.”

“Hm. I suggest we relocate to somewhere more structurally sound. Like the couch.”

Cisco wanted to immediately agree - yes, thank you, couch makeouts - but he couldn’t ignore the implied slight. “Hey, I checked the specs on that hammock! It was structurally sound!”

“Did you miss the part where we’re on the ground?”

“Manufacturer’s defect,” Cisco grumbled. “Or... you’re too much muscle. Muscle is dense and heavy.”

“You’re dense and heavy.”

“Am not! Shut up and help me up,” Cisco groused.

Once they were on their feet, standing close, Cisco caught Harry’s eye, and a bout of silliness swept over him as he relived the realizations of the last minutes. He broke out in a grin, fit to burst. Harry was _interested_. He and Harry were _dating_. If not officially before, they definitely were now. It was _real_ thing. A _together_ thing. It had taken a long time and a lot of angst, but Cisco had gotten exactly what he wanted: his friendship _and_ something more. 

Harry smiled back and tucked a curl of Cisco’s hair behind his ear.

“Couch?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Cisco agreed. “I need to collect on all this action I could have been getting.”

Later, comfortably wrapped around each other on the couch and breathing in the summer night, something occurred to him.

“It was totally UV damage,” Cisco sighed.

“Hm?” Harry inquired, currently focused on scrolling through Netflix titles. The light from the TV cast a blue light on his face in the darkened room. He had one arm around Cisco, who was sprawled half across him.

“The hammock,” Cisco replied. “I leave it out there 24/7. I knew I shouldn’t, with all the sun that place gets, but I just liked the look of it. UV totally fried the protective coating on the cords.”

“Mystery solved,” Harry hummed. He put down the remote, and put both arms around Cisco to pull him closer. “You know, I have another mystery that needs solving.”

“What’s that?” Cisco asked, winding his arms around Harry’s neck.

Harry smoothed Cisco’s hair back from his face. “Why were you so certain I couldn’t possibly be interested in you?”

A pang of discomfort twisted Cisco’s insides, and he looked away. He didn’t want to talk about this.

“I dunno,” he shrugged. “You just never seemed interested in anyone.” The name of Tess was heavy in his mouth, but he didn’t say it. “I figured I wouldn’t be an exception.”

“You’re one of the most exceptional people I know,” Harry replied. “I wasn't showing interest in anyone else because my focus was on _you_. You’re not that oblivious that you missed it entirely.”

Cisco shrugged again. “Like I said, just figured… it wasn’t likely. And I kept telling myself that, over and over, until I guess I convinced myself pretty well.”

“Improbably well,” Harry argued.

Cisco pursed his lips and debated his next words. “Um. There was also that time we went ice skating? And… that tabloid. It said we were dating. And you, uh, you said it was... trash.”

It sounded stupid as he said it aloud. But that word had sunk hooks into his brain that had never really gotten worked out.

Harry blinked at him. “That’s not how I meant it. Not at all.”

“Well what did you mean?” Cisco frowned. 

“I knew you didn’t like talking about… us. What we were becoming.” Harry said. “That tabloid put it in block letters for anyone to see, and they broke market protections to do it. I was angry because they might have made you uncomfortable, after I went to all the trouble to bring you somewhere safe. Somewhere no one would bother us. You may have noticed I don't get mobbed by the press when I'm there - it's part of the market's courtesy rules.”

“Oh.” Cisco bit his lip. It sort of made sense. And it was a weight off his shoulders to hear the explanation, even if Cisco knew he had a longer journey to recover from how deeply he’d believed his own negative version.

“Yeah, oh.”

Cisco rolled his eyes and decided he’d process more later. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. I wasn’t the only one making assumptions, Mr. _I-think-I’m-dating-Cisco_. I never said anything to lead you on. I was super careful about it.”

“You didn’t say it. But like you said, you don’t always say what you mean,” Harry replied. “I’m usually listening to what’s underneath. In this case, ‘Ramon has the hots for me’.”

Cisco looked down, cursing the blush rising to his cheeks. At least it was too dark for it to be visible.

“Also, while you didn’t say anything, your actions were fairly obvious,” Harry continued dryly. “ _Penguin protocol?_ Really?”

“Yeah, shut up,” Cisco replied, face hot now. “Whatever. I was… I was struggling, okay?”

“I know, I’m very attractive,” Harry replied smugly. “Practically irresistible.”

“Whatever. You’re lucky to have me,” Cisco sniffed.

Harry smiled and cupped his cheek. “That’s the spirit.”

\---

A few weeks later, a breach opened in the lab late on a Saturday morning. Cisco appeared shortly after, hands hidden behind his back and a look of barely-suppressed excitement on his face.

He strode up to the desk where Harry was working and stood there expectantly. 

"Hey, Harry.” He bounced up and down on the balls of his feet.

“Cisco,” Harry answered, amused. He paused his work and raised an eyebrow, taking in Cisco’s appearance with a sweeping, appreciative look - a habit that was now familiar and entirely unhidden. “What is it? You can barely contain yourself.”

Cisco’s bad poker face split into a wide grin, and he set something on the desk. “Check it!”

It was a small carton, the kind of compostable cardboard basket that the Earth-2 Farmer’s Market favored. In it were precisely thirteen blueberries. They were of different sizes, and some still had a tiny smudge of green on their underbellies.

Harry leaned forward to inspect them. “Are these yours?”

“Hell yes they are,” Cisco replied, beaming.

“Good work,” Harry complimented.

“Try one,” Cisco insisted. “They’re for you. Payback long overdue.”

Harry sampled one, and licked his lips with a slight pucker. “Mm. Tart.”

Cisco sighed. “Yeah, I think I kinda jumped the gun a little. But they happened!”

“They did,” Harry agreed. “You’re becoming a regular urban farmer.”

“Well, yeah,” Cisco replied, grinning at him. “I’m Cisco Ramon. I can do anything.”

**Author's Note:**

> Below is the original poem by William Carlos Williams:
> 
> This Is Just To Say
> 
> I have eaten  
> the plums  
> that were in  
> the icebox
> 
> and which  
> you were probably  
> saving  
> for breakfast
> 
> Forgive me  
> they were delicious  
> so sweet  
> and so cold


End file.
